History will forget effectively all of us, so that’s comforting.

I assume an imaginary but very real and typical climate change denier.

I assume, a tailored version of the narcissists' prayer.

https://www.thelifedoctor.org/the-narcissist-s-prayer

> We are all like ants in an ant mill. Each of us is doing the things that locally make sense for us

Easily lead by chemtrails, yes - but it is a fact that some individuals have disproportionately more influence over "local zeitgeist" than others.

As a brief recap; the atmosphere become a greater and greater insulating blanket as a direct result of human use of fossil fuels was solid science as far back as 1967 (ish - IIRC) and the larger more influential nations of the world accepted that finding and conferences on actions to take in the 1970s.

Since that time there's been a near non stop flood of FUD about the inevitable effect of rising CO2 that has been pushed out by the likes of the Koch brothers (now just one), Christopher Monckton, and many others directly benefitting from fossil fuel industry.

People in middle North America rolling coal and spitting on public transport projects have had their worldview been shaped by media crafted by think tanks with a mandate to obscure cold(?) reality and that lifestyle has set as aspirational to the world.

There are only about 1.6 billion cars in the world. Only about 20% of the world population has access to a personal car. Less than that have ever ridden a plane, and less than 10% fly with any regularity.

A super majority of greenhouse gases emitted are due to the lives of the top 20-30% of the population (of which unfortunately I am a part). The remaining people's contributions are small. 80:20 rule in full glory.

Worst of all, the 80% are the most impacted by climate change as TFA illustrates.

Not everyone's footprint is the same, though.

If I cut down my plane flight in half that means I'll take a plane every two years, meaning I'll also see my family half as much. You'd also have to include that, since I travel economy, you'd divide my contribution by ~350.

If Taylor Swift cuts her plane travel by half she'd "only" make 51 trips a year [1] on a plane that carries 12 and would still make more money in a year than what I'll see in my lifetime.

IMO, saying that both of us are contributing equally as much to global warming is just unfair.

[1] https://www.businessinsider.com/taylor-swift-spent-160-hours...

Not all participants are equal.

You are conflating participation from equality, yes everyone participates in the system, it takes a lot of privileged to be able to disassociate ones self from the system itself. The power dynamic within the system favors the wealthy, whom have decided that this is the path we are going down.

There’s a popular comic for this take - https://thenib.com/mister-gotcha/

Not all people have equal culpability. It's absurd to be like, well you havent successfully waged an eco-terroristic war to overturn the system so you're just as bad as someone actively leading a lobby group to cast doubt on the science, or bribing politicians not to act on it, or even just as someone who votes in favor of people who resist action. In fact it's just another tactic of denialism to say "if you can't personally solve this problem just give up and caring is ineffective so you shouldn't care"

I worked at a warehouse last year. Managers always breathing down my neck to work faster. Constant stress for 9 hours straight. (Okay, we got a lunch break at least. There are worse jobs!)

It got me wondering. Alright, what's his problem. Well, his manager is breathing down his neck too. It's literally his job to make my day as stressful as possible. Okay, why? You trace that chain and where does it end up? Fat capitalist?

Well, something something mutual funds. Okay, that's beyond me.

But what else? Well, where's that pressure coming from? It's the customer. If the company stopped whipping us, and let us work at a normal pace, they'd need 40% more employees to cover the work. Delivery costs would increase proportionally, and suddenly grandma would stop buying from us. She'd go to the company that whips their employees. The whole place would go under.

Something something, Moloch is my nan?

If it weren't for oil companies going out of their way to sabotage alternative fuels through politicians, misinformation, and a myriad of other abuses I'd be more inclined to believe you. Not everyone is equally culpable in this, there are many who have been trying to get rid of oil as the main fuel source for a long time.

two things can be true at the same time. oil and coal before it pulled billions of people out of extreme poverty, but the debt taken on in terms of CO2 will come due. if the gulf stream stops, we're all in for a ride - or worse, our grandchildren.

I'm personally in the 'drill and burn as fast as possible in a mad rush to fusion power' camp so we get a way to fix this shit rather than the 'stop civilization from doing its thing overnight' camp. alas, neither is happening.

Oh shut the fuck up